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Show ORIGIN OF BASEBALL. While baseball as' we know it is a sport of comparatively recently development, devel-opment, a game in which a tossed ball was batted with a rude club has been traced back to the 14th century in Europe. Eu-rope. The present American game was probably ' an outgrowth of that of "town ball," played in New England from about 1830, in which the runs were made around posts set in the ground, instead of bases. The first code of baseball rules was formulated by the Knickerbocker club of New York in 1845, the first match game was played the following year, and he first gate money series of games took place in Hoboken jn 1858. The- development of the game was checked by the Civil War, but was revived re-vived in 1865, when a convention was held at which representatives of 30 clubs were present. A Rockford, 111., team first employed employ-ed regularly salaried players, and the Cincinnati Red Stockings, organized in 1868, is considered the first professional profes-sional club. It made a tour in 1869, winning 69 games without meeting a single defeat. In 1870 it won 29 straight games, being defeated in the 30. h by the Atlantics of Brooklyn. Gamblers having gotten control of the game, a convention was held in Louisville in 1876, at which strict lules to overcome bribery, betting by players and other abuses were adopted, adopt-ed, and ihe National League was formed. There are now more than 20 professional leagues, of which the National Na-tional and American (originally the Western, formed by Ban Johnson in 1893) arc the two "big leagues." , The most significant event in recent baseball history was the appointment of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as "baseball czar" in 1920. |